Can someone update me on the lore around this guy?
Powermod of over 1000 subs. Permanently online. Bans users for no reason and posts inflammatory comments and pins them in threads. One example - Do you remember the r/Art drama where the artist got her art removed by a mod who said it was AI art (it was not) and berated the artist for her style? Yep, that’s awkwardtheturtle.
Basically the worst of the WORST of reddit mods with no life outside of reddit.
Further digging reveals the opposite. Not a guy according to the change.org petition, which is a little too doxxy for my taste.
Okay yeah I thought I remembered her being a woman but somehow everyone here is talking about ‘him’
By default, everyone’s a guy on the internet unless stated otherwise. Some people just know the name and that they’re a powermod and not much else. Also, they’re apparently trans or claims to be, so there’s a subset of people who’d misgender them on purpose.
That info from the petition saying awkwardtheturtle is another user is something that went around for a while, but it wasn’t true (unless there’s been a turn in that story).
awkwardtheturtle posted a selfie in the “centuryclub” subreddit (which only allowed people with over 100k link or comment karma in), and the person in the selfie definitely wasn’t the person people suspected awkwardtheturtle was.
The “proof” so many pointed to (including the petition) was a Vox article which was just repeating stuff from a Daily Beast article. The Daily Beast article never said the two were the same person, but the Vox article assumed they were. Probably because the head mod on a lot of subreddits that other person mods is/was awkwardtheturtle.